Sunday Malaria Blogging

Bill Gates raises a good point:

Obviously, since eliminating malaria doesn't have the kind of humanitarian possibilities we associate with things like invading Iraq, you won't see the kind of journalistic and intellectual mobilization behind this idea as we did around the "liberal hawk" movement. The difference, I suppose, is that fighting malaria neither has potential to make a writer feel tough nor does it seem very promising as a way to bash liberals and/or the UN. It's too bad, though, because we really could save a lot of peoples' lives.

Comments

Yeah, whatever. What I want to know is: What does Steve Sailer want to talk about?

Posted by DMonteith | October 21, 2007 10:03 AM

The Right thinks crushing liberals and marginalizing them forever IS saving lives. Proving the Left wrong vis a vis fighting Bush's Grand Crusades is part of that marginalizing. Also, malaria is killing brown, black and yellow people for the most part. Ignoring it accomplishes another item in their list of goals.

Posted by steve duncan | October 21, 2007 10:09 AM

That sounds suspiciously like something that helps sick children, so obviously it's unacceptable. And really, how do we know these irresponsible malaria victims couldn't have afforded their own DDT and anti-malarial drugs? Also, look at that one's hut, is that tin roofing? Shouldn't we be helping the Africans with thatch roofing first? [/just getting it out there]

Posted by Bo | October 21, 2007 10:33 AM

this is why the "humanitarian" argument for iraq is so insane: for the money we have spent on 27M iraqis, we could have benefited tens of millions more and still had cash left over.

Posted by howard | October 21, 2007 11:01 AM

The difference, I suppose, is that fighting malaria neither has potential to make a writer feel tough nor does it seem very promising as a way to bash liberals and/or the UN.

Yeah, because it's not as if liberals fought to eliminate the most effective weapon we have against malaria. Oh, wait, they did (DDT). Oh, well, what are a few dead Africans if we can supposedly save a few songbirds?

Posted by Glaivester | October 21, 2007 12:08 PM

I'll take a break from my normal cynicism and note that Bill Gates is trying to do a very good thing. Good for him.

Posted by fostert | October 21, 2007 12:14 PM

"nor does it seem very promising as a way to bash liberals and/or the UN.

That's not true. As you can see above there is a thriving niche market in malaria related BS. Although I think not making the writer feel the tough has substanial explanatory power.

Posted by Christopher Colaninno | October 21, 2007 12:19 PM

Glaivester,

The point you make isn't completely wrong. Certainly the furor over DDT was sometimes unbalanced and did not take the possible costs of banning it into account.

However (I'm a graduate student now in agroecology, so I have a little knowledge of the issue, but you should take it all with a grain of salt- it's a controversial issue):

1) The use of pesticides to control insects is fraught with complications. The biggest one being that insects have a tendency to evolve resistance to virtually anything we throw at them, including DDT. DDT use to control mosquitoes had actually begun to be reduced in the US a decade before Rachel Carson, due to resistance among mosquitoes. In India today, mosquito control programs are largely failing, and the reason cited by some parasitologists is the evolution of DDT resistance. This problem of course is not limited to DDT, and is a major factor in why countries all over the world have been striving to reduce pesticide use and substitute integrated pest management. Pesticides are like a drug in that you need ever increasing amounts to get ever diminishing responses. There would be good arguments against heavy pesticide use even if the environmentalist movement had never existed.

2) There is some evidence that DDT may be harmful to humans in the womb, and may reduce both child survival and cause reproductive problems in both men and women in adulthood. It has been suggested by some that the increased infant mortality due to fetal exposure would cancel out any decrease due to malaria suppression.

3) There are other, equally good methods to suppress malaria including bednets, permethrin, better drainage, and improved agricultural and aquacultural practices.

4) Removing a broad swathe of birds from an ecosystem (not just pretty songbirds, as you imply) is not a trivial thing, and could ultimately be very bad in terms of insect populations. Removing top predators from an ecosystem causes trophic cascades with often unpredictable effects. Birds do play a role in regulating insect populations, you know. A general problem with pesticide use is that pesticides tend to wipe out the predators of a pest more thoroughly than the pest itself (due to concentrations of toxins higher up the food chain) which allows the pest greater capacity to bounce back. It's a somewhat counter intuitive but very well understood principle. Spraying with a non-selective pesticide often results in increasing the pest that you wish to control.

5) A sensible DDT policy would probably have gotten rid of its use in agriculture while keeping it for limited use in household spraying. If conservatives had not been so invested in maintaining no restrictions on pesticide use, then perhaps they would not have empowered their equally shrill numbers on the left who wanted no pesticides whatsoever. Extremism on one side generates extremism on the other.

6) I believe that God want us to respect and cherish the natural world, which is an expression, at least in part, and through the mechanism of evolution, of his creative ability. Part of that includes, yes, protecting the pretty songbirds to the extent of our ability. The same songbirds that St. Francis of Assisi preached to.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | October 21, 2007 1:08 PM

Adding some more:

7) Vietnam reported a 97% decrease in malaria fatalities after switching in 1991 from a DDT-based control program to one using pyrethroid based insecticides.

8) A study in 'Nature' concluded that in El Salvador, the use of DDT actually increased malaria by promoting resistance among mosquitoes.

9) Mexico and India have voluntarily stopped using DDT, not due to pressure from Western environmentalists, but because of pest resitstance and better alternatives.

10) Malaria was, I believe, eradicated from the northern US and most of Europe by improved drainage practices well before DDT was even around.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | October 21, 2007 1:19 PM

A sensible DDT policy would probably have gotten rid of its use in agriculture while keeping it for limited use in household spraying.

No argument there. I am more against the total banning of DDT than the idea that its use should be restricted.

Malaria was, I believe, eradicated from the northern US and most of Europe by improved drainage practices well before DDT was even around.

True, but not always practical over the short-term.

Posted by Glaivester | October 21, 2007 2:37 PM

I am sick and tired of the pro-malarialist surrender monkeys stopping our war on this plague.

Michael Ledeen, Bill Kristol, and David Horowitz need to immediately come up with a tactical strike plan by which we can rapidly, loudly, and manfully eliminate the malarialofascist scourge.

Posted by El Cid | October 21, 2007 3:21 PM

Glaivester, please stop spreading these baseless myths about DDT and malaria. There is no "total ban." The World Health Organization, for example, "recommends indoor residual spraying of DDT for malaria vector control." DDT is not a magic bullet, due in large part to overuse and subsequent resistance. Sometimes it is useful, sometimes not. Phasing out its agricultural use actually *preserves* its value in anti-malaria efforts.

The fact that *some* environmentalists, who are in some sense "on the left," might want a total ban does not warrant blaming "liberals" for a ban that does not exist.

Tim Lambert has been fighting these lies for years; go here for a list, with links. Please stop repeating them.

Posted by X. Trapnel | October 21, 2007 4:21 PM

This post does a good job of summarizing why you should never write comments like that one again, Glaivester.

Posted by X. Trapnel | October 21, 2007 4:25 PM

I think some of you excellent, reality-based commenters believe -- or at least allow the appearance of belief -- that right wing pinheads care about the realities of DDT use and banning.

They don't. It doesn't matter whether you got each and every right wing pinhead to swear on the Bible, their first-born son, and apple pie, on video, about the mis-truthfulness of their rants on liberals & DDT.

The next moment, they'll go back to telling everyone on how no, no, it's not crazy right wingers wanting to kill the poor brown people, it's those liberals who stopped the poor Africans from fighting malaria.

They don't care what is true and what isn't. They don't care about what actually has or has not happened with respect to DDT. All that matters is the propaganda value of the false smear.

One good smear is easier to implant than 1,000 true, clear, and simple responses. That, and nothing else, is what this is about.

Posted by El Cid | October 21, 2007 5:26 PM

Hmmm... interesting link X. Trapnel. I skimmed it, and will try to look into that more deeply.

I won't at this time say for certain that my statement was incorrect, but it very well may have been.

Posted by Glaivester | October 21, 2007 5:34 PM

Come on El Cid. Once Glaviester realizes that agricultural DDT use has increased mosquito resistance and led to more malaria deaths, his deep love of Africans will lead him to become an ardent supporter of restrictions on DDT use. Just watch!

Posted by Barbar | October 21, 2007 5:43 PM

Actually, Barbar, I am totally for restricting DDT for agricultural use. (a) It is persistent, which is not a good thing for agriculture (better in my opinion to use pesticides that have very short half-lives), and (b) as pointed out here, agricultural use makes DDT less effective for mosquito control, which is far a more important use, and for which its persistence is a benefit.

Posted by Glaivester | October 21, 2007 5:54 PM

X Traipnel was a little too terse upthread. I encourage people to read the Tim Lambert post s/he linked, and I salute Glaivester for apparently reading it and being willing to take it seriously. The key points, in that Lambert post and elsewhere, are:

DDT was not banned except in the US and some other rich countries that don't have a malaria problem. Advocacy groups discourage DDT use for applications other than public health, but it continues, and in some countries it is widely used, and probably misused.

In fact, world institutions (and, indirectly at least, the US) fund DDT use against malaria and also conduct research into alternatives that might have fewer problems than DDT, for effectiveness and for cost efficiency. See the Lambert post for more.

There is at least as much a problem of over-use of DDT as of under-use because of unregulated use for non-public health applications and because of growing resistance in the third world.

For some reason, a lot of wingers like to shriek 'DDT' and completely misrepresent the situation - 'nuff said.

Posted by Warren Terra | October 21, 2007 9:17 PM